The best strategy for building customer loyalty? Don't be satisfied with being average
Exceeding customer expectations is the key to customer loyalty. It's important to realise that everyone in your business contributes to creating an exceptional customer experience at all times. These are not individual experiences, but elements that form a whole. If each experience is consistently better than the average, your customers will be fully satisfied and will develop a strong, positive bond with your company, which will influence return on investment, sales, referrals and customer loyalty.
To shed some light on this subject and answer three crucial questions about customer loyalty, we interviewed Matej Kukucka, Marketing Director at LiveAgent. Matej has spent over ten years designing perfect customer experiences at LiveAgent and continues to learn from the best in the business, including Shep Hyken, author of The Cult of the Customer.
How important is customer service compared to sales or marketing campaigns when it comes to building customer loyalty?
Matej Kukucka
Customer service is largely underestimated when it comes to improving customer loyalty. Of course, it's fine to spend money on sales and marketing campaigns, but it's important to reallocate some of that budget and time to training customer service staff. The aim of this training should be to reduce customer effort, to make everything as seamless and easy as possible, because as soon as there are complications, you start losing customers.
It's important to remember that the better the customer experience, the more likely customers are to come back and make further purchases. Obviously, loyal customers spend more than new customers. Many statistics prove this.
So my advice is to put more value on customer service. Think of it as an investment, not an expense. By eliminating customer problems, you can easily build customer loyalty, even more so than with a well-executed marketing campaign.
What kind of experiences should companies create for their customers to keep them coming back?
Matej Kukucka
Many companies are afraid to improve their customer experience because they think they have to reinvent the wheel or go beyond their capabilities. But this is far from the case. All you need to do is deliver an above-average experience.
You don't have to do too much. And if you're consistently above average, your customers will say, "Wow, you're amazing! And when they realise that, they'll come back because they won't settle for anything less.
How can you offer them an above-average service? This varies from one business sector to another and from one region to another. For example, in France, if you go into a bar or café and order a drink, the waiter will bring you some aperitif cakes.
However, in Slovakia, where our company is based, this is not common practice. So, if I were running a bar or café, the first thing I would do would be to offer aperitif cakes, because that would show that I cared about the customer. In reality, there's nothing revolutionary about it, and I'm simply giving something more than the average customer is used to.
What advice would you give to companies that want to exceed their customers' expectations at every interaction?
Matej Kukucka
I'd say train your customer service agents to ask additional questions that will help them go the extra mile for your customers. For example, if your customer tells you that they need to resolve a problem very quickly, your agents need to be trained to follow up quickly. Your agents need to be trained to follow up this type of request by asking what the deadline is, for example, rather than just replying "OK".
Everyone may have a different idea of what speed means, so it's essential to be on the same wavelength. By knowing the customer's expectations, your agents can either meet them, exceed them or redirect them, so that the customer is not disappointed if they are not met.
To continue with this example, let's say you can't solve the problem as quickly as the customer wants. In this case, after realigning their expectations, make an extra effort by promising to keep them informed whatever happens. Whether you solve the problem or not, let them know what you've done so far and what information you expect. Simply keeping your customers informed can do wonders for their satisfaction and loyalty.
Remember that business moves fast and if you leave your customers in the dark, they can turn away in an instant. In most cases, a single bad customer experience leads to a loss of customers.
As well as asking 'follow-up questions', ask your customers how you can improve their next experience. This may seem logical, but many companies don't do it. When was the last time a call centre agent asked you how they could have improved your experience and what they could have done better or differently?
Thank your customers in a way that will make them remember you. You can do this by sending them an e-mail or giving them a call: "Thank you for your call and for all your valuable comments. It helped me enormously. If you ever need a hand again, give me a call and I'll be happy to help. You can be as creative as you like. You can even send them gifts to say thank you.
This will make them feel valued, because they'll see that you've thought of them and made an effort. We tend to forget that customers want to feel appreciated and valued. And that's normal: they're the lifeblood of our businesses. In general, 20% of our loyal customers account for 80% of our sales.
Key points to remember
In short, don't underestimate the power of customer service- it can be your greatest asset in building customer loyalty. Train your staff to create the best customer experience every time and find ways to learn from each other. Try not to get overwhelmed, and just realise that you are helping people and can make a big difference to someone's day. Ask extra questions and strive to be above average.
Article translated from French